


So Quietly, So Softly

by Emiline



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Hackle Summer Trope Challenge, Happy Ending, Implied Asexual Characters, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 01, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 17:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14919327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emiline/pseuds/Emiline
Summary: It wasn’t until Ada nearly bit Gwen’s head off in the staff room over a trivial matter one evening that Hecate decided it was time for something to be done.Hackle Summer Trope Challenge Entry for "Sharing a Bed".





	So Quietly, So Softly

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the end of series/season 1.

As the schoolyear (as Hecate privately called it “The First Year of Mildred Hubble, For Our Sins”) drew to a close, it became obvious that something was wrong with Ada. Her eyes took on a haunted look, and dark smudges formed beneath them. The staff worried about Ada, but she refused to discuss the matter with anyone. _It’s just end of term stress, Dimity, I’ll be fine in a few days_ , and _Gwen, don’t worry about me_ , and _Hecate, I’m just a little tired, that’s all_.

Privately, Hecate thought that even Mildred Hubble could have come up with something more convincing. At the very least the Hubble girl’s excuses would have been much more creative. But Ada so clearly did not want to talk about it, and while she looked terrible Hecate had to admit that whatever was troubling her was not (yet) affecting her work. It hurt that Ada was hurting and would not let Hecate try to help her, but Ada was a grown woman perfectly capable of making her own (foolish) decisions. 

It wasn’t until Ada nearly bit Gwen’s head off in the staff room over a trivial matter one evening that Hecate decided it was time for something to be done. Ada immediately apologized to Gwen, but the poor woman was already sniffling into her sleeve and Algernon wisely whisked her away to her rooms.

“Ada, we need to speak privately. Now.” Hecate said firmly, transferring them both to Ada’s office and locking the door.

“Now, you are going to tell me what is going on, Ada Cackle, or so help me we are going to stay right here till the start of next term if necessary.”

“I haven’t been sleeping much,” Ada said, turning half away from Hecate.

“Yes, I can see that,” she snapped. “What I don’t understand is why. And I don’t think it’s just a matter of you not sleeping.”

Ada’s eyes flicked up to the frame where Agatha and Miss Gullet stared out at them.

“I can’t do this with them here,” she whispered. She dropped heavily onto the couch and scrubbed a hand across her face. “Dear Merlin, I’m so very tired, Hecate. I don’t think I’ve been this tired in my life.”

“I’m banishing your sister and Miss Gullet to the storeroom, at least temporarily,” Hecate replied softly, with a flick of her fingers. She sat down and grasped one of Ada’s hands in both of her own. “Tell me, please.” She rubbed her thumbs in gentle circles on the back of Ada’s hand. “Help me understand, and let me help you.”

Ada pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. 

“I’ve been having nightmares ever since…. Every night, I dream that I am still trapped in there, unable to get out, unable to move, unable to speak. And every night there is some fresh terror that passes before my eyes. Over and over again, I see the people that I care about hurt and diminished and put in danger and I can do nothing. I know it isn’t real, at least I do eventually, when I wake up, but it hurts as much as though it were. I thought at first the nightmares would pass, that I could wait them out, that they wouldn’t keep coming. But they do, and I can’t,” she swallowed and wiped at a corner of her eye. “I can’t stop them. I’ve tried. I thought, if I get tired enough I’ll sleep through them. I even tried taking a sleeping potion – a very mild one, but nothing worked.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ada pulled her hand away, stood up abruptly and turned away. 

“It is my job,” she said fiercely, “to keep this school safe. To keep the girls safe. To keep you and Dimity and Gwen and Algernon and everyone else safe. To keep the school running.”

She started pacing the room.

“And I couldn’t. I couldn’t do any of that. I-” she slammed her hand palm down on her desk, and Hecate started. “And when I got out-when we got out…Do you know how old I am?” she demanded. “Sixty-two. I am sixty-two years old, Hecate, and a reasonably powerful witch and yet I am unable to do something as simple as overcome some—some silly dreams!”

“Ada-”

“It’s a ridiculous problem. It is something I should be able to solve myself. This one thing, this one, small thing.”

She turned and looked at Hecate, eyes blazing.

“I need to be able to do this.”

“But you don’t need to do it alone,” Hecate replied quietly. “We are your colleagues and your friends and your fellow teachers and want to help. We _can_ help you, even if it is only moral support.”

“I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“You wouldn’t be. You can’t be, I promise you. Ada, don’t you see that we’re already worried about you? We-I care about you and want to know what you’re going through. Please let us share your burden.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Ada admitted. 

“Then let’s figure it out together.”

Ada blew her nose into her handkerchief and nodded.

“Do you want to talk more specifically about what you’re seeing in the nightmares?”

Ada shook her head. “I’m not ready for that. Not yet.”

And if they waited for her to be ready, Hecate thought, she might drop dead of exhaustion before anyone could do anything.

“I’d like to try something then, if you don’t mind.”

Ada nodded warily.

“I’ll describe a situation to you and you can tell me if it is correct. It’s not just whatever terrible images your brain is feeding you in these nightmares where you are back, trapped in the painting. And it’s not just the guilt you feel about your sister’s latest attempt to take over the school. You’re also waking in the night, maybe more than once, in the dark, alone, in the last throes of your nightmares and in that space between sleeping and being fully awake you wonder if you really are still trapped.”

Ada’s jaw dropped. “How do did you know that?”

“Educated guess,” Hecate shrugged. “And I had one nightmare, the first night after. It was…unpleasant.”

“Oh Hecate.”

“But it was only the one, I’m fine now. Which you obviously aren’t.” Hecate took a deep breath. “Would it help to have someone stay with you, so you’re not alone in the night?”

In the ensuing silence, Hecate could faintly hear Dimity instructing the girls in something or other outside. Then Ada replied in a small voice, “Would you?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” Ada replied fervently, and she looked so pathetically grateful that it nearly broke Hecate’s heart.

**xxxx**

Hecate lay in bed, listening to Ada’s quiet breathing. Long accustomed to sleeping alone, she had not considered how difficult it would be to sleep with someone else in the bed. She was terrified of inadvertently kicking or hitting Ada in her sleep, though she did have to admit that Ada had an extraordinarily large bed for a single person.

 _Perhaps she hasn’t always been alone_ a treacherous part of her brain whispered and Hecate shoved that thought away before her clearly sleep-addled brain could continue down such an inappropriate path. Besides, Ada wouldn’t do something so unprofessional at school, and that was enough, Hecate was _not_ indulging that particular line of thought.

Hecate adjusted her pillow, trying to find a more comfortable position, and set her mind to reviewing lesson plans. She must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing she knew Ada had whacked her in the face. Ada was tossing and turning, and making noises of distress. She turned on the lamp.

“Ada,” Hecate shook her shoulder, “Ada, wake up.”

Ada blinked her eyes open. “Hecate? What are you doing here?”

“I’m keeping you company, remember?”

“Right.” She reached for Hecate’s hand. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to keep thanking me.” Hecate frowned. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m sure I’ll be alright in a moment.”

Hecate reached out and brushed a wisp of hair from Ada’s face. 

“Are you sure you are okay with this?” Ada worried.

“I’m sure.”

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“I’m not, I promise. Stop fretting, Ada, and go back to sleep.”

Ada yawned and snuggled deeper under the covers. “You won’t leave?” she murmured sleepily.

“I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

“Good.”

**xxxx**

One night turned into two, and then three and when a week had passed, and they were finishing up the last of the post-term tasks Ada said “I don’t want to keep you from your summer plans.”

“You’re not. Much of what I planned to do this summer I can do here as well as anywhere else.”

And that was that.

Sometimes Ada was too keyed up to go back to sleep right away, and they would lie there, speaking of anything and everything, anything to keep the nightmares at bay. Other nights, when the nightmares were particularly bad and Ada awoke drenched in sweat, Hecate would summon a novel and read to her until her voice was hoarse.

Time passed, and the nightmares lessened. Hecate, who would with joy do anything for Ada but who had also looked to the day when she could have her own space again at night, suddenly realized that she would miss Ada’s company very much.

There came a day when Ada had not had a nightmare in over a week. 

“Hecate, I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me all these weeks. I know you don’t liked to be thanked, but I must, my dear. You were right, I could not have done this on my own. And I am so very fortunate to have you.”

She stood on her toes and kissed Hecate’s cheek. Hecate flushed bright red.

“You have been very kind and I have kept you from your summer far too long.”

“I like spending time with you.”

“Yes, but confess, you have been longing to go on your annual research trip this week and more. And I must go and spend some time with Mother, and I suppose I should bring Agatha with me.”

“Perhaps your mother would like to keep her for the fall semester,” Hecate said before she could stop herself.

“I couldn’t do that to Mother or Agatha.”

“No, of course you could not. Forgive me.”  
“There’s nothing to forgive.” She hesitated and then plunged forward. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, Hecate. You’re more than welcome, as always, to come with me to Mother’s.”

“Thank you, but you’re right, I did want to do some field research this summer and I haven’t gotten to it yet. And you should have some time on your own with your family.” Hecate hesitated, and then plunged forward. “I will miss you though. Very much.”

“As will I.”

“I’d better get started on making my arrangements, then.”

“Hecate,” Ada began, and there was something almost like desperation in her tone, but Hecate couldn’t think why that would be. “Would you stay with me one more night?”

Whatever Hecate had expected, that was not it. Silence stretched between them.

“Never mind,” Ada said too brightly, too quickly “It was a foolish thought, and the nightmares are all gone and-”

“Yes,” Hecate said.

“What?”

“Yes, I’ll stay with you tonight.”

**xxxx**

In the month or so that they were apart, before they returned to the school a little in advance of the start of term, Hecate grew accustomed once again to sleeping alone. But when she stepped back into the familiar halls of Cackle’s, it seemed strange indeed to think she would be returning to spending her nights alone in her quarters. Whether Ada also missed the company she could not tell, and was afraid to ask.

Life settled back, more or less into its normal patterns, Mildred Hubble continued to cause disasters, and whole new crop of first years found new ways to create magical disasters. They all had their hands quite full, and if Hecate sometimes felt a bit lonely there was nearly always a fresh crisis to almost make her forget.

Ada dropped by Hecate’s office one Friday evening, several weeks into term. 

“Hecate,” Ada began, twisting an edge of her own sleeve, “I have something to ask you, and I also ask that you hear me out because I’ve thought and thought of how to say but there’s not way to say it without it sounding like a proposition and I swear to you it isn’t. ”

Hecate raised one eyebrow and vanished the grading she had been doing.

“I’ve missed you, these past weeks,” Ada continued. “Being at home was different, though I missed you there too, in a different way. I’ve missed having you near me at night. I’ve missed waking up in the morning and seeing you there. I’ve missed our quiet conversations before we slip off to sleep. I don’t want to pressure you into something you don’t want. I don’t want you to say something that you think I will want to hear. I want you to know that whatever you answer I will respect that and honor whatever you say. But I have lately been wondering, if perhaps you have been missing those things too.”

Hecate felt her heart give an odd galumphing stutter.

“Yes, I have. More than I can say.”

“Then would you-“ Ada bit her lip, “Would you consider staying with me again? On a permanent basis?”

Ada clapped a hand over her mouth.

“On a permanent basis?” Hecate repeated. “Ada,” she continued slowly, deliberately, and with a calm she was far from feeling, “do you mean only at night, or are you asking me to marry you?”

“This isn’t how I had planned to ask you but yes, I am asking you to marry me.”

Joy radiated through Hecate.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Err, so I finally finished my entry for week 1 of the summer hackle trope challenge, in uh, week 3. Let's just say this story didn't go as I originally planned.


End file.
